“Identifying your goals, defining your purpose, andunderstanding who you are trying to reach. It’s in that second one, definingyour purpose, where branding is born.”
- Joanne Penn
This past spring I took a Digital Productions class and aScreenwriting class with Professor Safiya Songhai. The first day in classProfessor Songhai stressed the importance of a “Brand”. While going over theclass rules Songhai explain that whatever you do, no matter what it is, is areflection of your brand: every decision that you make is a representation ofyour brand. Though she was referring to class attendance, participation and beingin class on time, her statement spans to every aspect of life, whether it is academic,occupational or recreational. I understood what she was saying but did not considerthe weight of her nugget of wisdom until recently. Now that I am trying to gainsponsorship for conferences and film production, my “branding” objective has becomea very important concern. I asked myself: What is my brand? – I don’t Know –How do I find out? – look to the internet. So, I did: I looked on the internetand found an article by Joanne Penn, entitled Brandingfor Writers: An Essential Step to Building Your Author Platform. In thisarticle Joanne Penn breaks down what is a brand, and how to develop it. I foundit very helpful. Because of her article I have found that my goal is to conveyreality in a spiritual or INspirational way; I found that my purpose it to makepeople realize what they have forgotten or have overlooked (kinda like SpikeLee!), and that my audience consists of those who have been forgotten oroverlooked, the “little” people who do not realize that they are powerful, forby GOD, they are.
Picture provided by DonkeyHotey via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5666071828/sizes/z/, edited by Shei'Tia Benson
